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Is wiggy Bridezilla for real?

A backstage peek at a bridal meltdown on YouTube.com has awestruck watchers worldwide popping the question: Is it drama queen or just drama?

More than 1.8 million viewers have clicked onto the six-minute clip titled Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out since it was posted Jan. 18 on the popular video-sharing website, where yesterday it was still on the front page.

The clip reportedly comes from Canada. If so, it would rank amongst top Canuck shows. An average episode of the hit CTV series Corner Gas draws 1.5 million viewers.

Opinion is divided over whether the clip is for real. It looks that way, but publicity-seeking pranksters might have faked it. Canadian film veteran Norman Jewison watched the clip at the Star's request and he's suspicious. He thinks the bride might be chopping off a wig, not her real hair. (The reference to "wig" in the title might be a deliberate clue.) But he said that even if it's fake, it's still a great performance by the woman some people are calling "Bridezilla."

"Wouldn't you hire her as an actress? I sure would," Jewison said from his Toronto office. "If she's not one, then maybe she should become one. It's hysterical."

The debate is more than idle amusement for the many who have been passing the video link along the global gossip circuit.

It speaks to an increasing uncertainty in today's digital world over what's real and what's not, especially in the realm of popular entertainment where contrived documentaries like Borat and so-called "reality TV" challenge notions of veracity.

The only sure thing is it makes for jaw-dropping viewing.

Three bridesmaids gather in a hotel room for last-minute preparations for the wedding of their pal Jodie. The nuptials are just over an hour away.

Bridesmaids Esther, Jessie and an unseen and unnamed third woman, who holds the camera, chatter happily and toast each other with champagne while waiting for Jodie to return from the hairdresser.

Jodie storms in like Hurricane Katrina. She hates her hair, which has been done in curls with flower adornments.

She bolts from the bathroom and grabs a pair of scissors. As her bridesmaids gape in horror and laugh nervously, she begins hacking away at her hair.

As clumps of hair fall around her, Jodie realizes what she's doing. Then the hysterics really start, as she demands to know why her bridesmaids didn't stop her. Jodie finally rushes the camera in a rage and the tape abruptly ends.

Now everyone is asking: what did Jodie finally do about her hair? Did she and her beau get married? And did this event really occur or was it staged?

The clip was posted on YouTube by someone calling themselves "Wigoutgirl," who claims to be 25 and from Canada. Is "Bridezilla" Canadian?

"Wigoutgirl" didn't respond to an email request from the Star for an interview and much prodding of YouTube for information yielded only a boilerplate response from spokesperson David Song: "It is our policy not to comment on individual videos."

That's a big difference between new and old media. It would be inconceivable for a TV network or movie studio to release a video or film for public consumption without giving some indication as to its provenance and whether it should be viewed as a documentary or drama.

But is it necessary in this day and age for such full disclosure? It seems it all depends on the context.

"The whole essence of this website is that anything goes," said Jewison, whose five-decade filmmaking career includes the Oscar-nominated Fiddler on the Roof, Moonstruck and In the Heat of the Night.

"I don't think you're watching this website to see anything that's professionally produced. It's people dancing naked or on their head. It's a freak show, is it not?" Jewison added.

Another view of the truth vs. reality debate was offered by Allan King, the Toronto pioneer of the cinéma-vérité style of realistic documentaries like Warrendale and A Married Couple.

"The whole arrangement of fact and fiction in our time has been extraordinarily blurred," King said from Regina, where he is editing his latest film.

He hasn't seen the "Bridezilla" clip yet, but he ventured the opinion that it could be real, because the greater the emotion the harder it is to pretend.

"I think if you get into passionate and strong feelings it's hard to fake that. The more emotional stuff is, particularly when it gets to intimacy, it's easier to spot the feigned. It's hard to believe that people would have sufficient acting skills to fake it."

Jewison admits he could go either way on "Bridezilla." He's seen professional actresses completely lose their composure on movie sets. So maybe the clip is for real after all.

On the other hand, Jewison also knows actors who would willingly chop off their hair for the camera, if it brought them useful publicity.

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